The tour vehicles pulled away from the T-Rex paddock, the ponies once again disappointed that another one of the extinct reptiles didn't bother to show.
"Ughh. You would think in a zoo with dinosaurs, you would actually get to see some dinosaurs." Rainbow Dash moaned. "Especially the T-Rex, he's my favorite."
"Ahh, the essence of chaos." Sighed Pinkie Pie cheerfully.
"Say what now?" Rainbow was surprised at Pinkie's utterance of a term synonymous with a certain petrified draconequus.
"Chaos." she replied. "Rexy not showing up when we wanted it to. The essence of chaos."
As usual, the ponies were stumped to Pinkie's randomness, until Twilight had a brainstorm.
"You mean chaos theory, don't you Pinkie?
"Of course. What else do you think I meant?"
"Chaos what?" said Fluttershy.
"Sounds like something Discord would think of." Rainbow added in.
"Oh no," Twilight continued. "Nothing to do with Discord at all. Chaos theory is the study of unpredictability in complex systems. I read a lot about it before I moved to Ponyville. But how did you know about it Pinkie?"
"Cupcakes. Baking cupcakes gives you all sorts of perspectives on the bigger picture."
The three other ponies looked dumbfounded.
"I'm still don't know what you're talking about." said Fluttershy.
"Unpredictability? Well it's really just how random occurrences shape what happens in the world around us. Come to think of it, it's not surprising Pinkie knows about it."
"But still..."
"I'll show you, the best way to know is too see."
Twilight levitated one of the glasses of water over to her.
"Hold up your hoof Fluttershy we're going to do a little experiment. I'm going to let a drop of water fall on your hoof, and lets see which way it goes."
Fluttershy held up her hoof. Twilight levitated a drop of water and dropped it on Fluttershy's hoof. Pinkie watched.
"Okay see, it went down straight. Now we'll let another drop fall in the same place, which way do you think it'll go?"
"Same way."
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes at the boring egghead stuff Twilight was talking about, then saw something out in a field next to the road. It looked like one of the red jeeps. She heard a low pitched moan too. Twilight dropped another drop on Flutters' hoof.
"See look, it went a different way."
"Wow!" said Pinkie Pie. "How does it do that?"
"It changed direction because the tiny variations of the ridges and patterns on Fluttershy's hoof caused a random unpredicability in the course of the water."
"The beauty of randomness." Pinkie sighed.
"I'll never look at my hooves the same way again." said Fluttershy.
Rainbow Dash suddenly bolted out of the moving tour vehicle.
"See, there's another example of chaos theory. Nopony could have anticipated Rainbow Dash jumping out of the car just now."
Fluttershy followed Rainbow out of the car.
"Rainbow Dash! Where are you going? Come back!"
Pinkie Pie joined them.
"WeHee! Wait for me!"
Twilight was now alone in the moving car, unable to comprehend the irony of the situation.
"And now I'm alone in the car talking to myself. Oh unpredictability."
In the first car, Rarity and Applejack noticed the others heading into the field. Rarity dipped down her sunglasses.
"Where are in Equestria are they all going?"
"Looks like thers somein in the field down there. I'm gunna check it out."
Applejack jumped out of the car.
"Applejack. Wait darling." Rarity followed her.
"Wait for us?" the crusaders followed too.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in the control room, Orange and the crew saw their pony guests were vacating the moving vehicles.
"Stop the program! Halt everything."
BrightBulb hit the computer command that halted the tour vehicles.
"You'd think Baltimare Motor Co. would give us vehicles that actually had locks on them." Octavia moaned.
Derpy Hooves was at her own station monitoring the park systems. At the same time, her eyes went between the clock on her desktop to the shaving cream can that Filthy Rich had given her.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The ponies made there way through the open field with Rainbow Dash at the lead. Fluttershy caught up to her.
"Rainbow Dash, where are you going?"
"I saw a jeep and heard something. Maybe there's a dinosaur down here."
"Cool." said Pinkie. "Maybe it's a big one like a stegosaurus."
Fluttershy started to worry.
"Um, what if it's a meat-eater?"
Daisy trailed the group down into the field. She too was nervous about what was down here.
"Is there anypony who thinks we shouldn't be down here?"
Everypony kept on going.
"Hello? Anypony?"
All of a sudden, a low moan came from through the tall grass. Rainbow halted the group.
"It's over there. I'm gonna see what it is."
Rainbow headed off to investigate. Scootaloo followed her.
"Scootaloo? What are you doing?" said the other crusaders.
She walked her way through the tall reeds to a small patch of flattened grass, and finally saw what they were after.
"Oh wow!"
There among the flattened reeds was a huge full-grown triceratops. It was laying on its side moaning and groaning. It had been partially sedated and vet ponies were examining it. The other ponies came behind Scootaloo and couldn't believe what was here.
"It's alright." said Harding the vet pony. "She won't hurt you. We sedated her to examine her, she's sick."
"Sweet Celestia!" said Applejack. "A triceratops!"
"She's absolutely gorgeous." Rarity gasped.
The ponies felt around the dinosaur's frill and two large horns. To actually be touching a dinosaur was the most amazing thing they had ever experienced. It was almost magical.
Fluttershy was taken the most with the triceratops. Falling onto her knees she crawled up to the trike and put her hooves on its nose horn. A hot blow as the dinosaur exhaled blew threw her mane, bringing the yellow pegasus to tears.
"My gosh." said Twilight. "She was my favorite when I was a filly, and she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"It's so amazing. I could just faint."
Twilight noticed the sores on the dinosaur's tongue.
"What's wrong with her?" she asked Harding
"This happens every six weeks or so. Imbalance, disorientation, trouble breathing, sores on the tongue."
"The poor thing." said Fluttershy. "She must feel terrible."
Rainbow Dash and Rarity laid on the triceratops's belly feeling her breathing, rising and falling with each inhale. Rarity could hear the heart beating within its body.
"I can hear her heart!"
"Cool."
Fluttershy and Twilight helped the vets examine the triceratops. Fluttershy had a hunch at what was making the dinosaur ill.
"Well with the consistency its happening it has to be from the flora around here?"
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo came up.
"Look what we found."
"What do you have there girls?"
Twilight levitated what Sweetie Belle had in her hooves.
"Look at these stones and how smooth they are."
"They're gizzard stones." said Twilight. "The trike must have regurgitated them."
"You mean the triceratops eats rocks?" asked Scootaloo surprised.
"Yes it does. A triceratops eats stones to break up the vegetation in its stomach."
Applebloom came up.
"Look at these berries, they were along side those stones."
"East Equestrian Lilacs." said Fluttershy.
"Ick." said Twilight. "Those things will throw any pony for a loop."
"How so?" asked Applebloom.
"They're poisonous." Twilight answered the filly. She turned to Harding. "Do the animals eat these?"
"No.They don't."
Suddenly a light bulb went on in Fluttershy's head.
"Hey, maybe that's what made the triceratops sick. Those are the gizzard stones from when she feeds, and there's poisonous berries right next to them. I bet when she goes to swallow the gizzard stones she eats the berries along with them."
"That's possible," said Harding "But how would we confirm that?"
"There's only one way. I need to see the dinosaur's droppings."
Harding was surprised what Fluttershy had proposed to do, as were the other ponies
"Excuse me miss, but...did I hear you right?"
"Yes." she answered. "You heard me."
"Uh Fluttershy," Rainbow pulled her aside. "Are you..."
"Yes."
"You mean you want to..."
"Yes."
"As in you're going to..."
"Yes."
"Stick your hoof in..."
"Yes."
Fluttershy turned to Harding.
"Do you have any large gloves I could use?"
"Uhh...sure."
He gave her two hoof gloves.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The tropical storm that Octavia was monitoring had neither dissipated or changed course. It was heading right for the island and would make landfall within the next hour.
"We're going to have to cut the tour short. The storm is going to hit us straight on. We'll pick it up tomorrow right where we left off."
Uncle Orange wasn't thrilled with what he was hearing.
"Are you sure we have too..."
"We can't take that risk."
Bright Bulb picked up the intercom broadcaster
"Mares and Stallions. The last shuttle for the dock leaves in five minutes. Drop whatever you are doing and leave now."
Uncle Orange stood in the middle of the room not moving, then angrily stomped his hooves and snorted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In another part of the field were four huge mounds of triceratops poop. The brown piles were the size of termite mounds, about as tall as the ponies, with flies buzzing around them and with a terrible smell.
"Phewwie! What a stench." Applejack covered her muzzle with her hat.
The ponies all watched as Fluttershy pulled her hoof out of the piles of poop.
"Your friend is really quite tenacious." Harding said to Twilight. "I've never seen anypony volunteer to stick their hooves in something like this."
"This is nothing." Rainbow replied. "You should have seen her when Harry the Bear was constipated."
"Lilac berries. I knew it." said Fluttershy. "That's the only thing that could cause this."
"Good to know." said Harding. "We'll be sure to spray for those bushes once the trike recovers."
A roll of thunder boomed across the sky.
"Fluttershy," said Rainbow Dash "Make sure you wash your hooves."